The original TUNED PORT INJECTION emblem was starting to show some wear on my black '89. I touched it up with a paint pen, but in certain light and angles I could tell. Today I replaced it with a new one from Hawks.


This is the original one. Actually it looks pretty good in this pic.




The new one from Hawk's










The new one is not perfect, though. It looks bent. It was shipped to me bent and the silver paint is not perfect on some of the letters.

Am I being too picky?


Also this:





My touched up original looked so much better than this one. I should have kept it.

 

Based on your photos, I'd run the original. The new one looks bent relative to the straight line in the rear bumper indent.

 

Thanks Kurt, I'm glad you see it too. The original one was damaged in removal, so that's not an option now.

 

Also this:





My touched up original looked so much better than this one. I should have kept it.

 

If little things "bug" you, those bugs will eventually eat you alive.

 

True. I probably wouldn't care if this were a daily driver, or maybe I would. But this definitely bugs me now on this car.

 

Looks Pretty Damn Close To Me,The Letters Are Slightly Different.

 

That droop on the right would bother me more than the paint pen touch ups.

Put the original back on.

 

The original broke in several pieces during removal, Chris.

 

Sometimes better is the enemy of good enough. Should have left the original on.

 

Agreed. Too late for that now.

 

I keep forgetting I need one too. Mine wasn't great when I got the car, so last year I took it off. Any place besides Hawks to get one? Isn't classic industries or year one doing third gen stuff? How about anybody playing around with 3D printing? Surely someone can make a better one?

 

Whether its center caps for early 16" IROC-Z wheels, window switches, washer fluid bottles, your TPI emblem, IROC-Z grille inserts, parking lights etc, most every aftermarket reproduction piece for a third gen is pure crap. Designed to look good in an ebay ad, and thats it. The little "GM Approved" sticker that is sometimes included doesn't fool me or anyone here either.

Its too bad your original broke Charlie. I would hold out for a NOS piece.

 

Ya know... The only way any of those parts get any better, is if we insist on them being better. If they don't meet expectations, call, email, whatever but contact the seller and let them know what's wrong with the part. Send the part back for a refund. Eventually they should get the message and either fix the part or stop offering it altogether.

 

I would contact hawks and get a better one. That would bother the crap out of me.

 

 

I have in fact, PM'd Hawks this thread. These seem to be the same "GM Approved" reproduction emblems lots of people are selling. I think we deserve NOS quality on a simple part like this.

 

Definitely. No way am I leaving this one on the car.

 

Sure, if there is a better one.

 

Exactly right, Drew.

 

Same thing with the covered T Top replacement ABS Headliners, the fabric grain runs from, front to back , it should run left to right.Yes Chaz, little things **** ME OFF

 

I try to avoid repops at all costs for this exact reason. I'd wait until a nos gm one pops up on eBay and then buy that and call it a day. I personally would've been happy with your original one actually but that's beside the point since that part is no longer an option.

 

I would be all over fixing / replacing that TPI emblem too.

It bugs me that "most" re-pop items are at such a low level of quality for most cars. I never knew weather it was because no body wants to invest in the tooling to make things correct, or if it's a licensing thing? But stuff like that crooked emblem drives me crazy. Not, crazy on your car Chaz, but crazy from the perspective that somebody is making those & thinking they are good enough. So many aftermarket parts like that out there. We have so much better technology in the world today but nobody can make replacement parts that fit or look the way originals did decades earlier in a mass production environment. its sad.....

 

Are you sure you did not bend that down when applied? Those are kinda flimsy. I bought mine from Classic Industries. If I remember right unless they re popped the box it looked to be NOS. I am not 100% as it was over a year ago. If it did come bent I wold hope Hawks would replace it. Yes the little things bother me also and that bend would drive me nuts!

 

OH! I like that line a lot! May need to steal that & use it in the future!

 

This is what I do. It takes a while for some things, but its worth it in the end.

 

Trouble is that NOS parts are a finite quantity. Also it's worth mentioning that NOS aren't always EXACTLY the same as original. Often there are small details of NOS parts that don't match exactly with the original for whatever reason.

 

When I ordered all my decals & emblems for my 87 at the GM dealer the TPI 5.7 emblem in gold was already unavailable & this was in 1999. So, I started watching for one to show up on eBay & finally found one new in the GM bag, but it took a few years of waiting. And, I had to pay up for it.... I should probably take it out of the bag to inspect it closer after all this talk......

 

100% sure. I figured it would re-align itself once installed. I was wrong.

 

I got a repro gold one for my yellow car several years ago and it was perfect. The quality of this one is so far below that one.

 

I'm in that process right now.

 

I have been painstakingly collecting all of the parts I want and need for my TA, only NOS or clean original gm for over 2.5 years now. And I did so on the two other third gens I've owned in the past too. Of course it's true that there are a finite amount of nos parts available, but they're out there if you're patient and don't mind spending a little extra money over repop stuff. If you're getting nos, buying nos parts with the old blue GM label also helps you to get closer to assembly line correct parts too as sometimes the parts suppliers changed and made small variations in some of the later production of parts for our cars.

 

Just paid through the nose for an NOS one. I will examine this one carefully when it comes in before installing. If it's perfect, it's worth the cost to me.

 

Im glad you found one Charlie! I'm sure it's going to have been worth whatever you paid for it!

 

The funny thing is that I've been helping a friend freshen up his RA II '68 GTO this year. The repro parts for that car are usually super accurate and super high quality.

I think Drew said it. Nothing will happen, unless we refuse to accept low quality parts.

 

Thanks!

We'll see how it looks when it comes out of the package.

 

Whenever possible, getting nos parts that were manufactured during the period of time that gm used this style parts sticker is ideal.

 

Absolutely!

 

 

I have a feeling that this thread is going to turn into way more than one about a crappy repro part.

 

Lol! For me, I have just seen how low quality most of the repop parts are and whenever possible I try to avoid them at all costs. If you're restoring a first gen Camaro or something like that, using a few repop parts is a necessity and some of those are pretty decent. But for third gens, our cars are still new enough that we can find most of the parts you want or need NOS or clean used original gm still, so it's hard to justify putting cheap inaccurate low quality parts on our cars at this point in time. In 10 years from now that might be a different story...

 

The thing is, like I said earlier, I bought a repro TPI badge for my yellow '85, 5 or 6 years ago, for like $20-$25 and it was PERFECT. Because of that, I didn't even think twice about getting this one. Obviously, there is someone else manufacturing them, now.

 

Hopefully Hawks will be willing to refund you your purchase price for that part at least.

 

I'm sure they will. But the point of this thread is not about that.

 

Did you start a thread in the Aftermarket Review forums?

Maybe if we start a thread for every crappy reproduction, we can get the vendors to improve the products. Or at least save other forum members from buying crap parts.

 

I bought the 5.7 Tuned Port Injection emblem from Hawks a few years ago and it wasn't perfect relating only to size, but visually it was in perfect shape.

 

I'm not gonna make a generalization about all repops, but with regard to the TPI emblem, I bought a gold one a few months ago from hawks and the paint was perfect. Now, it WAS bent....but it was so flimsy that I just straightened it out while installing.

 

Just a small update. Hawks accepted the return, which I never had doubts about. I would like them to comment on this thread though. So many of us depend on vendors like Hawks for our parts and it'd be good to know what action they might take with their supplier.

 

Chazman when I read the title of this thread I knew you were the OP before I even checked...


I just replaced 3 weeks ago my "tuned port injection" emblem and I got it from Hawks. Looks perfect. Sorry yours came bent.


NOW I have gone through 2 front bumper emblems from them. The red/white/blue stripe piece falls off and is not sufficiently glued to the backing. Laziness and the unwillingness to reinstall a replacement (those are a real bitch to install) prevented me from calling Hawks and asking for $$$ back. But I should have.


Have a new emblem on there now. See how long this one lasts. If I remember when I get home I'll take a picture of the tail emblem.

 

Kent, are you trying to say I'm picky?